How the Soviets Won the Cold War, and Facebook Will Spy on Us All

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&nbsp October 18, 2018

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Hey guys, welcome back to our USA Really daily podcast, with today’s edition for October 18. This podcast is your chance to get a quick rundown of all the pieces we’ve published today, to see which ones tickle your ears and eyes and you want to give a longer look at.

And hey! Don’t forget about YOUR chance to win BOATLOADS OF CASH from us in our Global Democracy Award. We’re looking for some creative original material on the theme of the US government’s interference in other countries. If we like your stuff, we just might publish it and toss a few thousand bucks your way! Definitely check out the contest page for more details, and get us your original work by December 1!

What’s that you say? You want to hear more about easy money? Well, have you been banned from Facebook? Or do you have any information on illegal actions from the US government and the structures controlled by it that impose censorship in the field of social networks in particular, and the internet in general? Well, USA Really is looking to file a collective lawsuit against Facebook and is also offering a $5,000 reward if you can send us proof of these illegal actions! Find out more at the page “Zuckerberg Wanted.”

Well, onto today’s opinion piece: “Kavanaugh Confirmation Hearings Reveal the ‘Red Face’ of the ‘Ugly American,’” by Jeffrey Silverman. He says, “Being a judge is a long road; some US judges are elected, others are political appointments but each new Supreme Court nomination arouses public comment from predictable quarters. But no one expected the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings to have turned into a three-ring political circus. To cut to the chase, what transpired was a job interview and Kavanaugh blew it.” As I said yesterday, I take issue with him there, and you can check out yesterday’s podcast if you want to know why. But he also writes, “We are all in for a very bumpy ride when the American public wakes up to the fact that the Soviet Union won the Cold War, by turning the US into everything the Soviet Union once was, and that all US allies have known this for a long time, but they didn't, and now can’t do anything about it.” Okay, I’m not going to say more—you’re just going to have to read the piece to see how Silverman gets from Point A to Point B! It’s worth your time.

So let’s get to work rolling through our news pieces.

First up is our this day in history piece. There’s actually two events from the Revolutionary War today: the Burning of Falmouth in 1775, and the end of the Siege of Savannah in 1779. And who can forget the Alaska transfer ceremony of 1867?! Remember when Russia sold Alaska to the US for $7.2 million? The transfer is now celebrated in the state as Alaska Day, and we’ve got a firsthand account of the ceremony for you. So be sure to learn more about Alaska’s eeeeevil Russian past.

The greed of American elites and the endless war in the Middle East increasingly lead to the loss of the US’s influence on the global economic stage, clearing space for China to become number one. But, this October, the US Senate joined the US House of Representatives in passing the Better Utilization of Investment Leading to Development (or BUILD Act), a bipartisan bill creating a new US development agency—the US International Development Finance Corporation (USIDFC). This is the most important piece of US soft power legislation in more than a decade. The success of the BUILD Act is something to celebrate. The next step will be to make operational the new USIDFC, a process that may take up to a year. But the question is: “Will the BUILD Act Help the US Regain Its Global Clout?” For instance, the BUILD Act has promised $60 billion in funding for the USIDFC, but it is still a far cry from China’s $60 billion pledged to Africa alone. So this piece goes more in depth on all that and gives you the figures and details you need to know.

And our good buddy Facebook is up to more shenanigans! Now it looks like they want to get a camera into millions of homes, despite widespread privacy concerns. Facebook reportedly wants to stick a camera on your television as part of its foray into consumer hardware. According to Cheddar’s Alex Heath, who reported on the Portal smart display that Facebook announced last week, the TV device is codenamed “Ripley,” and it would provide both video chat and streaming video services. Now, Facebook is still dealing with the fallout from their massive data breach, so it will be interesting to see how this goes. Will people trust them? I think, most Americans have short memories when it comes to this kind of stuff. Check out “Facebook Building a Camera TV Set-Top Box Amid Privacy Concerns” for more.

“Will the Fed Burst the Biggest Bubble of All Time?” Jerome Powell, the 16th and current Chairman of the Federal Reserve, made a truly staggering admission during a Q&A session following the Fed’s last meeting that the Fed is going to “hike rates until something breaks.” And when I say “breaks” I don’t mean stocks fall 5%; I’m talking about a full-scale crisis like 2008. Fed Chair Powell is stating that the Fed won’t stop hiking rates unless stocks collapse for a prolonged period to the point that it impacts consumer spending. We’re talking about a real crisis here! Will it pan out this way? Of course that remains to be seen, but you might want to start preparing now!

Dennis Hof, the 72-year-old GOP Nevada legislature hopeful was found dead at his Love Ranch Vegas in Carson City on Tuesday. He just went to sleep and never woke up. There’re no signs of foul play. Interestingly, due to Nevada election law, he’ll still be listed on the ballot in November, but signs will be posted at polling places in the district alerting voters that he’s dead.

There’re a ton of bad influences for our children all around us, everywhere in our culture. Do we really need cartoons to join the fray? Apparently Netflix thinks so. Its show Big Mouth 2 sounds like a real pile of degenerate garbage. It is marketed as an adult cartoon, but its aired among children’s shows, and its known for showing explicit homosexual acts (between kids!), propagating pedophilia, and forcing kids to think about “what their real gender is,” as well as “talking to their genitals.” Perverts know that they have to start grooming children young to turn them into adult perverts, and this is a great example of it. “Why Does Netflix Animation Propagate Perversion Among Kids?” has the full story for you.

And poor Florida. Hurricane Michael wreaked some serious havoc, which has highlighted the state’s need for stricter building codes. There’s some houses that came through the whole thing totally unscathed, basically because they were built as super fortresses. Of course, not every building can be that way – money concerns, but I mean, if you’re going to build in Florida, you have to build securely.

And Japan has taken a bit of a hit in the trade war that’s going on. Japan recorded a trade surplus for September of $1.2 billion, but exports fell 1.2% from the previous year, in the first decline for the world's third largest economy since 2016. There were some natural disasters that played a part, for sure, but the lag in exports also reflects uncertainties over the trade war between the US and China after President Donald Trump imposed penalty tariffs on billions of dollars' worth of Chinese exports. Weaker US-China trade generally hurts the export-dependent Japanese economy. Find out more about what our Japanese friends are experiencing now at our piece, “Trade War Affects Japan: Exports Fall in September for First Time Since 2016.”

Mid-term elections are coming—your chance to shine, to express your voice, and your chance to decide what’s going to happen. One of the most important questions this year is whether the trend of low turnout in mid-term elections will be bucked. We will know only after November 6, but there is a sense that things certainly are different this year. That’s because early voting or mail-only voting has already started in 20 states — and there are some pretty striking numbers coming in. For instance, the total number of early voters in Georgia is already up 170% from 2014. Hopefully that means more conservatives are coming out, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Our next piece is unfortunately very sick and disturbing, although, thankfully, there aren’t any graphic details. It seems a 26-year-old mother and her 25-year-old boyfriend in Upper Darby, PA used her 3-year-old daughter to make child porn. Yeah, pics and videos. Thankfully, police tracked her down and she’s been charged with sexual abuse and exploitation of children, endangering the welfare of a child, and indecent assault. I hope she gets locked up for good.

And one Uber driver decided to get nasty, apparently several times. 24-year-old Harbir Parmar likes to pick up women and then take them wherever wants. One woman recently was trying to get home to White Plains in New York, but when she fell asleep, he headed for Boston instead. At some point he stopped the car, got in the back seat, and started trying to unbutton her shirt, which is when she woke up. She protested, so he ditched her there on the side of the highway. He’s charged with kidnapping and faces up to life in prison. Ladies, be careful out there.

And today’s opinion piece is very interesting—one you’re definitely going to want to check out. “The Occult Messaging at the Heart of Pop-Culture” by Walt Garlington—just the title has me excited! So Garlington uses the upcoming anniversary of the release of The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask for Nintendo 64 as an opportunity to go through the game and explore esoteric lore undergirding the exoteric game structure. This particular game, he says, offers such a clear example of the foccult foundation of much of popular culture today, even that produced by ‘family-friendly’ Nintendo, which goes by unnoticed and is thus passively absorbed into the souls of so many of its consumers, that we thought it good to delve into it. The overall structure of the game is very much akin to the process of alchemy, he says, with the end goal of the return of a long lost golden age. Garlington will take you through all the levels of this imagery, and maybe blow your minds in the process!

Well, once again, we have come to the end of our time together. As always, thanks for listening, thanks for reading, and be sure to keep it right here for all the news you need to know.